Throughout this summer, thousands of pupils from schools across Coventry and Warwickshire will be given the opportunity to participate in the Belgrade Theatre's pioneering drama project.

Big School, which will welcome 1,5000 pupils from over 30 primary schools from across the city and throughout the surrounding region, will run for three weeks between Monday, June 6, and Friday, July 1.

Big School is a Theatre In Education project run by the Belgrade Theatre’s pioneering Community & Education Company, and has been running since 1998.

It is the Coventry theatre's annual Theatre In Education production, which explores the issue of transition from primary to secondary school.

Currently run on an annual basis, Big School was originally commissioned with the aim of helping pupils deal with this key transition, exploring the challenges children face when moving from being the oldest year group in a school to being the youngest in a large, unfamiliar space, with new teachers, new friends, new subjects and a daunting new building to navigate.

The ground-breaking Theatre In Education movement was first pioneered by the Belgrade in 1965 as a way to use theatre and drama to create a range of learning opportunities for young people.

Actor-teachers from the Belgrade would tour local schools where they would perform short pieces of theatre and lead workshops that allowed students to explore important issues and ideas in active and creative ways.

The movement soon spread to theatres across the UK, and then to broader contexts across the globe, inspiring a wide range of participatory theatre with children and young people, encouraging and empowering children to investigate challenging situations for themselves.

In 2015, the Belgrade Theatre celebrated the 50th anniversary of establishing its dedicated Theatre in Education Company with a year-long festival of events which included a two-week festival of theatre by and for young people in July, a two-day international conference exploring the relationship between theatre and learning and a two-week festival of theatre for children and families in October.

Big School 2016 is directed by the Belgrade’s associate director Justine Themen with support from Claire Procter as co-director.

This year’s programme of interactive drama sessions will be delivered by actor-teachers Leon Phillips and Kim Hackleman.

TIE photographs from the 1960s

Justine Themen says: ‘In an age where government education funds are being given directly to individual schools and taking into account the increased marginalization of drama within the national curriculum, the future of Big School is by no means a certain one.

"Because of the way in which the allocation of funding to schools has changed, supporting a dedicated Theatre In Education project of this scale is becoming increasingly difficult’.

"The transition from primary to secondary school can be a tremendously challenging time in the life of a child and if it doesn’t go well, can have a lasting impact of a child’s achievement and well-being.

"Work on transition is often about telling children what they need to expect when they make the step up to secondary school.

"Projects such as Big School are about giving young people the opportunity to explore the challenges that they may encounter and come up with their own ideas as to how to meet those challenges.

"Grown-ups can sometimes forget that children are dealing with change all the time and are often very resourceful.

"We need to support children to access the resourcefulness within themselves at this important time in their lives.

"The Big School project is an integral part of our Community & Education programme and we are very proud to have helped many thousands of local young children with the difficult transition."